Taking in Rescues
by avatarjk137
Summary: A hobo takes up Jumba's job offer as a test subject and gets more than he bargained for. Oneshot. Transformation themes. First-person, OC perspective.


**Just a oneshot with a transformation theme (unless you want to see more of this storyline), nothing to see here. By the way, there have been rumors abounding that I'm Flame Rising. I'm not; if I was, I certainly wouldn't frequent parts of his forums where I could be associated with him. Please use your head before making or believing accusations.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own _Lilo and Stitch;_ Chris Sanders does. I only own this charming hobo and the contents of the story.**

**Taking In Rescues: an Experiment TF**

"Hey… help the homeless?" I called out. "Sir? Spare some money?" I was dressed in rags and worn sandals, with a big old plastic novelty beer stein in front of me for change, and a cardboard square next to me that said, "To be honest, I need money for beer." Yes, the classics. I figured, _the soup kitchen provides food. Honesty is the best policy._ It hadn't been working. "Hey, brudda, help the homeless? How about you, ma'am?" Shit.

I wasn't one of those people who wondered, "How did I end up here?" I knew perfectly well. I had decided that Hawaii and its perfect weather was the perfect place to make my fortune, and had bought myself a one-way ticket. If I had done my homework first, I would have known that Hawaii had the highest unemployment rate in the country. I never found a job, stayed looking too long and didn't have enough cash left for a ticket back, lost unemployment, lost the lease on my apartment, and ended up sleeping under a bridge and eating at the soup kitchen, two meals a day (there was no third one) in scenic Kauai. Why not just hand me the idiot of a lifetime trophy? Which brings me back to begging for beer money at dusk in Kokaua Town. My name… well, what does it matter?

"You, sir. Would you help the homeless?" I asked a strange-looking dude who passed by, catching his attention. He wore a yellow floral-print shirt and blue shorts that he was too fat for, along with a fisherman's hat and a pair of sunglasses. He had a bushy rust-colored mustache that looked out of place on him, and he had a really weird skin tone - lighter on his front than his sides and back. Behind his sunglasses, his eyes were yellowed, and there was something… off about them. He peered down at me , and I repeated myself. "Can you spare some change?"

"I can be doing better than that," he rumbled with a chuckle. He had a weird accent, kind-of-almost-Russian, but if he was going to help me out, that didn't matter to me.

"A dollar?" I asked with a smile.

"Better."

"You're going to take me out for a bite?" I asked hopefully. A few good Samaritans had gone so far as to buy me a diner-quality meal in the last few years. It was generally better than the kitchens, and I always ordered soda. Soda didn't bliss me out like beer, but it was something I sorely missed from having money.

"Even better," he chuckled. "Young man, I am being a scientist, and I have an… experiment that is needing a human test subject. If you are willing to perform this role for me, I will be rewarding you handsomely."

I mulled it over for a second. It sounded pretty shady. On the other hand, I didn't think I could wind up in a much different situation than I was in now, and there was a reward involved. Besides, who better to test a dangerous new product than a hobo like myself. "I think I could help you," I said, brushing my grimy black hair out of my eyes. "What's in it for me?"

"How is about good looks, expanded intellect, and _super powered immortalitiy?!_" he asked with an alarming grin. When I looked skeptical, he sighed and added, "And thirty-five dollars."

"Sounds like a deal," I replied with a grin.

"Gooooood. Be following me." I picked up the change tin to follow his hulking figure, but left the cardboard poster behind. _Screw honesty._

After leading me down the road for a half-mile, the man, who introduced himself as an 'all-around evil genius' named Jumba Jookiba, turned off onto what was little more than a rough trail through the jungle, leading me along. I made some small talk along the way, told my story; Jumba seemed to think I had been very foolish about my business decisions (something I couldn't really argue), but assured me this test would be the beginning of a second chance for me. When I asked about him, he claimed to be a family man at heart, but explained that marriage had worked out poorly for him, and he lived with his nieces, sister-in-law, and 'pets'. I say 'pets' and not just pets because there was some enigmatic knowing context he used the word with that just bothered me and set my imagination on overdrive. He didn't seem overly social, but wasn't outwardly mean.

Finally, we got to his lab, which looked like a spaceship except for the plaque that read "Jumba and Pleakley's Bed and Not Breakfast". He explained the name was from a previous business venture, but when I asked about the spaceship décor, he pretended not to hear me. What a weird sense of humor. Then we went inside his lab. As grateful as I was to be out of the sweltering Hawaiian humidity, I was mostly amazed at just how 'mad-sciency' it looked.

"Could you get any more of the evil genius feel if you _tried,_ Jookiba?" I asked.

"I have tried," he replied seriously. "Now be coming along, experiment is very simple."

"Do I have to strip down?" I asked, dreading the answer.

"No."

"But I at least have to take a disinfecting shower, right?"

"No."

"No? But I'm… you know… a dirty, smelly hobo." I had actually been kind of hoping to score a shower out of this.

"Is not mattering in the least," he dismissed with a wave of his meaty hand. Weren't scientists normally really strict about this crap? He led me over to a machine that featured a big, empty, cylindrical glass tank suspended several feet in the air, with a chrome top and bottom and chrome rings around it that lit up green and purple. "This is what you will be inside when I am conducting the experiment."

"So… you're going to zap me with that, and that's the experiment?" I was reasonably sure at this point that Jumba was a little off his rocker. I hope he actually had the money.

"Oh… oh, no!" Jumba laughed, and I felt a little relieved. Then he pulled a large syringe from a chilled container, and I didn't feel relieved anymore. That needle was _huge,_ and the stuff inside was some kind of green snot goo that might have been glowing with its own light. "I inject you with this, and _then_ I am zapping you! The zap is just catalyst, yes?"

"Oh… yeah…" I nodded half-heartedly. "Will this hurt?"

"Yes, very much so," Jumba said soberly, and stabbed the syringe deep into my chest, into my heart. My chest felt like it was on fire when he emptied the stuff into it, and I flailed in pain. The scientist held me in place with ease as he withdrew the needle, and threw it into a bin while he still restrained me with his other hand. "Sorry, but it is being for the best that I hold you down." His free hand tapped a button, and the bottom of the glass cylinder detached and lowered to the floor - an elevator. "Enjoy the experiment," Jumba concluded as he unceremoniously shoved me onto the circular elevator platform.

"Ugh… are you sure this is safe?" Whatever the green stuff was, it burned like hell.

"What? Safe?" Jumba roared, waddling over to a control panel. Then he burst into full-fledged maniacal laughter. "Whoever was saying anything about this being safe?!"

"Oh. Ooh," I muttered as he pulled the main switch.

The chrome rings around me suddenly began to crackle with green electricity, coursing around the cylinder. I began to feel warm, then hot… then unbearably hot. Gasping, I stripped off my shirt and shoes, and had gotten halfway through stepping out of my pants when a wave of agony, far worse than from the syringe, ripped through me and forced me to my knees. Even that quickly proved too much as I collapsed against the ground. My chest burned horribly, and I rolled over on my back, to look at… a growing layer of dusty gray fur?

Although the pain across my body was starting to fade, the fur itched horribly, and I couldn't help but scratch at it. Even as I did, the fur spread to my sides, my shoulders, down into my underwear, enveloping my nipples and navel and turning darker as it left my chest. When it reached my shoulders and hips, I heard horrible pops and felt fresh pain blossoming. "Not to be worrying!" Jumba yelled. "Your body is readjusting for equal comfort in bipedal and quadrupedal movement!" All I knew was that, when this round of agony was over, my shoulders and hips moved a bit differently and my legs felt shorter.

My hands and feet started burning as well, when the fur reached them, and I sat halfway up against the glass to watch. It wasn't that I wanted to watch my body change so much as I felt I had to. Black pads appeared on my palms, the balls of my feet, and the bottoms of my fingers and toes. My fingers shortened as my toes lengthened, and my finger- and toenails lengthened into curved black claws. Suddenly, the pain multiplied, and I screamed out as my little finger and big toe both melted entirely into my hands and feet. Again, the pain ebbed away, and I was left tearfully wiggling my remaining digits.

"You are doing fine!" Jumba yelled, manipulating various dials and levers.

"Yeah… fine… sure…" I replied weakly. Then I contorted in pain as the fur passed my neck and reached my face. I could feel my face changing shape, pushed and pulled like taffy. There was no pain quite like feeling my eyes and the sockets holding them stretch and grow. My hair shrank inward and lightened a bit to join the rest of my new coat of fur. The sounds of my own yelling were amplified as my ears stretched and crept up my head. My face pulled into a short, rounded muzzle. Blood trickled into my mouth as my teeth were forced into a new shape to match my mouth, and new teeth sprang out to join them. My nose reshaped into a rounded bulge. Two… somethings grew from my forehead, and it felt like something was drilling out of my brain, before my face seemed to finally finish.

I opened my eyes, but had to squeeze them shut again. The glass tube seemed so much brighter! My headache quickly returned from the raw sensory overload, but that too was drowned out at the wave of pain coursing down my spine. I hurriedly forced myself over onto my furred belly, just in time to feel something hard erupt from my back in pairs. It happened two… three… four times, then the pain concentrated in a knot at the base of my spine. I gritted my new teeth as the beginnings of what could only be a tail worked its way out of my ass, over the waistline of my underwear, stretching longer and longer… it seemed like an eternity before the pain and stretching let up, and I flopped back to the floor, exhausted. But something was still wrong.

"Be hanging on," Jumba called. He wasn't yelling anymore, but it still sounded louder than back when he was. "Almost finished, but it'll hurt to grow new shoulder blades."

"NEW SHOULDER BLADES?!" I yelled, getting up on my knees. This instantly proved to be a bad choice, as the new wave of pain sent me crashing back flat on my face. "Urgh…" I felt two more lumps of torment form under my arms, and like my tail, they quickly started to boil outward. I couldn't even scream this time. Only the whistling sound of my constricted breath came out. I looked at the furry appendages that had burst from my side, and watched in awe as a new set of paw-hands formed on the end of them. "Whoa…" was all that I could say when my speech returned to me. Finally, I noticed that all the pain seemed to be gone… although the electrical crackling was still on. I worked up the courage to ask Jumba, "Is it over?"

"Mm… Is one more thing."

"What this time?" I asked nervously. Then I found out. The pain returned, all over my body. It felt like it was inside my bones, and on the outside, there was a tremendous crushing pressure. I thought I was going to die… it was too much… I couldn't see straight, and then I blacked out.

"Ah, you are being awake." I cracked an eye open. Jumba was staring triumphantly down at me.

"You owe me thirty-five dollars, Jookiba," I rasped out. "Cash. Up front." What was wrong with my voice?"

Jumba gave a hearty laugh that wasn't so different from his maniacal laughter from earlier. "You can have the money," he laughed, "but I am not sure if it will be doing you much good!"

"What are you talking about?" I growled, forcing myself to my feet. Jumba looked a lot taller, and he had been well over six feet already. I clutched my head… my hair felt different. I looked at my hand. It was a paw. "Oh, crap… that all just happened, didn't it?" I pointed my new paw at him. "You turned me into… one of those mutant dog things you guys have running all over town!" I gasped. "They all used to be people, didn't they?"

"No…" Jumba chuckled. "You are being first one that 'used to be people', and they are not being dogs either. You see…" Jumba took off his hat, revealing only a few hairs underneath, and then pulled his mustache off his face. "I am not exactly being what you'd call normal."

I raised what used to be a proper eyebrow. "You're bald?"

"Huh? Oh, no, is not being that." Then he took off his sunglasses and I got the point - he had two yellow eyes on each side of his head. To this day, I'm still not sure how I didn't notice earlier. "You see, what I neglected to be mentioning earlier was that I was Jumba Jookiba, evil genius _from the planet Kweltlekwan._"

"That's kind of an important detail," I muttered angrily, scratching behind my new ear. "So I'm an… alien dog?"

"Who was using the word dog? You are an extremely advanced genetic alien Experiment. Remember what I was promising you?"

"Thirty-five dol-?"

"FORGETTING THE THIRTY-FIVE DOLLARS! The other things!"

"Oh, right. You said I'd be smarter, superpowered, handsome, and immortal, right?" I flipped forward onto my paws/hands (very easily, I might add), and then I felt so light I could balance on just one hand-paw, so I did. And _then_ I tried balancing on one finger. And that worked too. "Okay, so I'm a superpowered alien now. And I'm smarter, I guess." Jumba nodded proudly and pressed a button that opened up a wall panel behind me to display a mirror. I turned to look in it, and he pressed another button to bring another mirror out of the ground behind me. So I could see my back, I guess.

There was no real hint in my appearance that I had ever been human. My eyes appeared to be solid iris; my eyes had always been a nice kind of stormy blue, but now I had a huge pair of peepers that were ]_entirely blue. _My nose, which stuck out from the tip of a short, rounded muzzle, was kind of midnight blue itself, and cold and wet like a dog's. I had four arms and two short legs, each of which ended in black-padded paws with four black-clawed fingers or toes, along with a tail that resembled a cat's or a monkey's. My ears were like something between a cat's and a rabbit's, except they hung down on the back and sides of my head. Weirdest of all, I had two sets of stumpy black spines running down my back (four each), and a pair of long, lightly furred antennae on my forehead. They stuck up and out just below where my hairline used to be, then bent a bit backward and crossed in an X over the top of my head. Whenever I moved one of the new body parts, I got an unshakeable sense that it was too late to ever turn back.

A thick, dark grey coat of fur covered pretty much my entire body. It got lighter from my lower jaw down the front of my neck, chest, and stomach, around my eyes, and inside my ear. On the other hand, I had midnight blue fur in a wavy pattern on the back of my head and neck. The dark blue fur also formed rings on my wrists and ankles, two rings near the end of each antenna, and two more rings at the end of my tail. I only had one patch of black fur on my body - on my chest, where it formed a squat diamond above an elongated diamond. It kind of looked like a clip-on tie. "Look at me," I finally complained. "I'm… cute." Also, I realized, my voice was rough but nasal and much higher in pitch.

"And fluffy," he added helpfully.

"You said I'd be handsome."

"I was saying you'd be _good-looking_. Cute is a kind of good-looking."

I finally realized what I _hadn't _seen the changes to. "Where is my…?"

"Ah. Not to be worrying. All my Experiments have reproductive organs that are staying inside until needed, for protection and…" he smiled wryly, "to be preventing feelings of inadequacy in some of them."

That got a chuckle out of me. "So… when did I lose the rest of my clothes?" I asked with a little suspicion.

"When you were waking up a few moments ago, you crawled out of your trousers," Jumba explained. "Would you like me to be describing to you your new abilities?"

"I would like that very much," I said with a smile as I inspected my clothes. No way I was ever wearing these again. Not only did they no longer come close to fitting me, but I realized now just how much they stank.

"Alright, in addition to some degree of heightened strength, agility, speed, durability, and senses over inferior human body, you will, like I was promising, be having a superior processing brain and being basically immune to any death by natural causes."

"So it's not total immortality, like I can still be _killed_ killed?"

"Correct, although it would be quite difficult, as you are being much more durable than a human. In addition, you are having ability to blend into background via camouflage. Is very powerful ability."

"You mean I can make myself invisible?"

"Er… no, is not quite that impressive…" Jumba scratched his head sheepishly. "I have done invisibility Experiment before, but I couldn't get it quite right a second time. So instead, your power simultaneously is invading the minds and software of all people and computers around you, and altering them to think you are not there." I just stared at him. "Is not quite as good," he repeated.

"Are you kidding me? That's even better!"

"Well, you will not be invisible to anybody who is immune to mind control or hypnosis."

"So what? I can simultaneously go into everybody's minds! Think of the other stuff I could do with that!"

Jumba cleared his throat, evidentially not wanting to 'think of the other stuff'. "Yes, well… you are also having ability to 'see' others who are using invisibility or trying to be hypnotically suggesting that they are not there. I was adding that ability to cut down on 'complications' that sometimes arise with cloaking. Finally, you are having ability to disguise your voice however you please."

"Really? I can change my voice?" This was great - the new voice was one of the few things I didn't like about the new body. "How?"

"Be pressing upper rhombus on pattern on chest, while thinking of voice you want."

"You mean, uh… this?" I pointed to the top part of the necktie pattern, which was pretty much on the base of my neck.. He nodded impatiently, and I jabbed it. A small green light gently flashed on the little diamond (which I could only see from my reflection), but I didn't feel any different. "Hello? Testing… oh, sweet!" I sounded just like my old self again!

"You like, eh?"

"Absolutely." I pressed the tie again. "**Luke… I am your father.**" Jumba chuckled, and I pressed it again. _"Let's get ready to rumbbbbllllleeee!_" No laughs this time, but I was entertained. I pressed it again. "_Girls just wanna have fun!"_ I sang (I always was a Cyndi Lauper fan, and yes, I am plenty secure in my masculinity).

"All right," he grumbled. "Is not toy. That is being enough."

I switched it again, this time trying for Patrick Stewart, and left it there. "Fine, have it your way," I sighed in his light British accent. Jumba made a valiant effort to hold in the effort, but quickly cracked up. "So, what am I going to do?" I asked him as he regained his composure. "You were right… I'd have a hard time spending my thirty-five dollars like this."

"Not to be worrying," he assured me. "All my Experiments, your new form being included, were being designed with a function in mind that they can be performing uniquely well - a purpose, essentially. It is never hard to find somewhere they are truly belonging."

"And where do I belong?" I asked curiously.

"Well, I was knowing that if you survived experiment-"

"If?!" I asked, but he plowed right through my objection.

"-Then I would be wanting to recreate process. So I was creating your Experiment body with intended purpose of scouting out more people who would be benefiting from being changed."

"I'm supposed to look for more people who would be better off as little furry super aliens?"

"Yes."

"How about EVERYBODY?"

"No, I had already been considering just applying treatment to entire species. Is bad idea. War would overrun Earth, silly religious people would be up in arms, and even worse things might be happening. Would be _catastrophic!_"

"Oh. Okay. One person at a time, then."

"Correct. You can be starting job tomorrow. There is medical bay of ship containing a cot you may be sleeping on until we are making more permanent arrangements." Jumba had started up a program on an oblong laptop computer and was typing something into it. "Now, normally my Experiments are being given three-digit number for designation. However, I am technically not allowed to be making Experiments right now, let alone be turning humans into other things. So I will be giving you four-digit designation, which should make you harder to find on my files. From now on, you are Experiment one-zero-zero-one."

"Experiment 1001? Sounds good to me." I know it sounds kind of flaky of me, but aside from the practical aspects, I don't think I was going to miss being human. Not at all. Maybe it was the way I brought up, or the fact that I had no loved ones and almost no worldly possessions. Maybe it was the way my new body felt, or even maybe the transformation had affected my brain so I wouldn't miss being human. I didn't particularly care at the moment, and I haven't particularly cared since.

"However," Jumba continued, "I am trying to get into habit of referring to people and Experiments by name. Little girl… er, Lilo… wants me to. So…" his eyes widened.

"You never asked my name," I said with a small smile. He nodded. "My name… what does it matter?"

**End of Story**


End file.
